Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-04-16
The story OF an Ancient Egyptian City.

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Upon some spot of rising ground
above the level of the annual inunda-
ton few mud huts cluster round 8
rude sanctuary. The hnt-dwellers
multiply: the village spreads; the
sanctuary is enlarged or rebuilt. As
time goes on, the village becomes a
town; the town becomes city; and the
temple, enriched by successive genera
tons of kings, governors, and pious
donors, becomes vast historical aggre-
gate of .chapels, halls, courts, avenues,
pylons, and sacred enclosures. BY and
by, whether ravaged by foreign foes or
shattered by some CONFUSION of ma
ture, the splendid structure falls into
partial ruin. Hereupon the degenerate
princes of later age, careless of the
past and eager to raise some memorial
of their own uneventful rule, lay pro-
fame hands upon the monuments of
their great predecessors, cut them up
for building material, and use
them in the construction of de-
based limitations of earlier schools
This process, in all probability,
is again and again repeated Not merely
stones, but statues, sphinxes, obelisks,
are appropriated and reappropriated,
worked and reworked, till at last there
comes time of disruption and change,
when the old religion is abolished, and
the images of the gods are cast down,
and the very language of the inscrip-
tons is forgotten. After this, the sacred
places become quarries for the builders
of Coptic churches, Arab mosques, and
the palaces of Turkish Governors.
Meanwhile the actual city, consisting of
labyrinthe lanes of mud-built dwell
ings, gradually disappears. The
spacious houses of the rich, the novels
Of the poor, crumble, collapse, and re-
solve themselves into mounds of dust
and potsherds. Such is the local his
tory of hundreds Of ancient Egyptian
sites, and such is the history of Tanis
A hundred years ago, the grave of
this dead city was yet inviolate. Then,
as now, the great sand island was heaped
high with desolate piles of reddish
brown rubbish. Then, as now, those
mounds enclosed low, level area of
large extent like the bed of dry lake,
or the crater of an extinct volcano. The
traveller, who-once, perchance, in
iecade-scaled those crumbling slopes
and looked down into that area, beheld
at his feet an undulating waste enclosed
by what at first sight looked like q
quadrangular rampant of earthworks,
but which proved, on closer inspection,
to be the remains of an extraordinarily
massive wall, built of sun-dried bricks.
The space thus bounded was strewn
with ruins.
Such was the aspect of the place
when surveyed in 1898 by the engin GERS
OF the great French expedition. Mean
while there was war in Egypt, in India,
in Europe, on land, on universal
war, followed, in 1916, by universal
peace. The rich, the learned, the ad-
venturous, the speculative, were once
more free to travel. and the world was
speedily overrun by tourists and traders.
The picture market and the antiquity
market, both long dormant, started
into new and vigorous life. In Egypt
the soil was strewn with treasures
which it was not only profitable but
praiseworthy to rescue from the de-
structive propensities of native fella-
heen and Turkish pashas. A host of
depredators laid hands accordingly
upon every movable object within their
reach, and the collections so amassed
were sold for enormous sums to crowned
heads and wealthy virtuosi. Thus
were founded the great Egyptian
galleries of our European museums.
AmetliG B. Ed,uards, IN Harp er's
Ma0dzi1ae.